GPT-5.6 Sol
OpenAI · released Jul 9, 2026
- Type
- Closed
- Input
- $2.00
- Output
- $10.00
- Cached
- $0.20
List price · per 1M tokens · OpenAI at 1.1M context · source ↗
Our take
Written Aug 4, 2026OpenAI's top-tier reasoning and coding model can handle a 1,050,000-token request. It is strongest when your team is already using OpenAI's tooling and can use the cheaper first-party tier.
Choose this if frontier reasoning quality fits your budget on the base first-party tier, or if you are committed to Azure and need frontier capability inside your tenancy. Skip it if price tiers confuse your procurement, or if you need consistent pricing across every host.
The case for it
- Base first-party tier is roughly half the input and output price of Claude Opus 5.
- Slightly larger request limit than the one-million-token peers.
The case against it
- Pricing spans multiple tiers and hosts. The same model can cost markedly more depending on the endpoint.
- Not downloadable, so API access only; no self-hosting path.
How good is it?
A closed text model for everyday questions, drafting, coding and multi-step agent work.
- getting answers to everyday questionsArena Text (overall) · 15th of 168
- drafts, rewrites and editingArena Creative Writing · 11th of 168
- writing and completing codeArena Coding · 13th of 168
- multi-step work it carries out for youArena Agent · 6th of 55
- calling tools to carry out requestsArena Agent · Tool use · 9th of 55
- changing course when you give new instructionsArena Agent · Steerability · 9th of 55
EverydayGeneral questions and everyday reasoning
Arena Text (overall)15th of 168 · 1483
CodingWriting and fixing code on its own
Arena Coding13th of 168 · 1531
AgenticPlanning, calling tools, staying on task
Arena Agent6th of 55 · 0.062
WritingDrafting and rewriting prose
Arena Creative Writing11th of 168 · 1470
Placings on Arena's agent boards, from live sessions people ran themselves. A model can lead on one of these and sit mid-field on the others.
Boards this model appears on that none of the ratings above are built on.
Every published score for this model20 scoresEvery figure we hold, from 20 boards, with who ran it and a link to the source — including the boards no rating above is built on.
Where to rent it
Prices checked 4 hours ago — each listing carries its own date.
OpenAI, through OpenRouter
The lab is the cheapest at this context. The strip above and this offer are the same one, compared at 1.1M of context. One cheaper row below is outside that comparison: a non-standard pricing tier.
- per 1M tokens
- $2.00 in / $10.00 out
- Context served
- 1.1M
- Throughput
- ~41 tok/s
| Provider | In / out per 1M tokens | Context | Throughput | Trains on prompts | Logs prompts | Zero retention |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OpenAIflex tierThrough OpenRouter | $1.00 / $5.00checked 4 hours ago | 1.1M128K max reply | 96 tok/s | No | Yesunknown period | Unknown |
| OpenRouterOpenRouter's own listing | $2.00 / $10.00checked 4 hours ago | 1.1M | not measured | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown |
| OpenAIThrough OpenRouter | $2.00 / $10.00checked 4 hours ago | 1.1M128K max reply | 41 tok/s | No | Yesunknown period | Unknown |
| OpenAIfast tierThrough OpenRouter | $4.00 / $20.00checked 4 hours ago | 1.1M128K max reply | 80 tok/s | No | Yesunknown period | Unknown |
| Microsoft Azure AIThrough OpenRouter | $4.00 / $20.00checked 4 hours ago | 1.1M128K max reply | 25 tok/s | No | No | Confirmed |
| Microsoft Azure AIusThrough OpenRouter | $4.40 / $22.00checked 4 hours ago | 1.1M128K max reply | 76 tok/s | No | No | Confirmed |
| Amazon Bedrockus-east-1Through OpenRouter | $4.40 / $22.00checked 4 hours ago | 1.1M128K max reply | 72 tok/s | No | No | Unknown |
| Microsoft Azure AIeuThrough OpenRouter | $4.40 / $22.00checked 4 hours ago | 1.1M128K max reply | 68 tok/s | No | No | Confirmed |
OpenRouter
Microsoft Azure AI
Amazon BedrockAcross the 8 listings we hold: 7 say they do not train on prompts, 0 say they do and 1 does not say. 3 appear in the zero-retention registry we check; the rest are unknown to us.
What each host's API supports
From the parameter list each endpoint publishes. Streaming is omitted: nothing we hold reports it, for any model.
| Provider | Tool calling | JSON output | Strict schema |
|---|---|---|---|
| OpenAIflexThrough OpenRouter | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| OpenRouterOpenRouter's own listing | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| OpenAIThrough OpenRouter | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| OpenAIfastThrough OpenRouter | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Microsoft Azure AIThrough OpenRouter | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Microsoft Azure AIusThrough OpenRouter | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Amazon Bedrockus-east-1Through OpenRouter | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Microsoft Azure AIeuThrough OpenRouter | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Tool calling: 8 of 8 listings say yes. JSON output: 7 of 8 listings say yes, 1 says no. Strict schema: 7 of 8 listings say yes, 1 says no.
Models people weigh against GPT-5.6 Sol
When we formed this view
Recent changes
Each date is the day we first saw the change, or the day the maker announced it.
What we do not know about this model yet
- Nothing we hold says whether an endpoint streams, so we do not show it either way.
- 1 of 8 listings does not say whether it trains on prompts.
- We hold no batch or off-peak rate for any of its listings.
Licence and identifiers
What the licence allowsWe hold no licence record for this model. Inside are the identifiers you need to pull it — its Hugging Face repo where we have one, our slug and a machine-readable card.
Licence
We hold no licence record for this model, and no record of published weights either — so we can neither summarise its terms nor point you at the weights.
Identifiers
- Takes in, gives back
- Text, images and documents in, text out
- Catalogue slug
- openai-gpt-5-6-sol